Continued from Kindergarten thread (IC)

[Shari]

http://www.conductdisorders.com/for...rtners-right-now-45534/index4.html#post494254

Didn't want to totally hijack Janet's thread...

So in response to IC...

Things like this used to drive me batty.

Now....I dunno....it is what it is and it is not within my circle of influence and for whatever reason, my self has accepted that.

At almost 15, she still has no vision past high school. No plans for college or career. Even recently made a statement that she'd like us to move when she graduates....recognition that she's not going to live with a parent forever isn't even there. And again, why should it be? Mom lives essentially with her parents, and husband's parents, well, you've heard enough of that story...if they had their way, husband would still live at home with her, too. Hell, she can't even let go of what's on the menu for Christmas dinner.... So if that's the way it ends up for cgfg, I will chalk it up as a sad statistic, but there's not much more that I can do from where I sit right now.

 

[InsaneCdn]

Shari -

There is nothing you can do UNLESS she comes to live with you. So lets start with that premise...

difficult child was in HS before we got him turning around... still a ways to go, but... its coming.
No vision for the future, and behavior way worse than cgfg...

We now have... hearing technology (huge win), computer use (moderate win), and a raft of other accommodations... and now... well he might be anything from a mechanic to an engineer to a band teacher to an architect to... who knows what depending on the day. But... he has goals, he has hope, and the behaviors are slowly melting away and/or responding to intervention...

Missing dxes... Auditory Processing Disorders (APD), Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). On top of confirmed ADHD with working memory and executive function challenges.
The rest? 100% secondary.

But just park all that in the back of the old brain... for the day when you MIGHT get to use it. And/or share it...

 

[Shari]

Yup. There's a plethra of things that could be done. For starters, she responds amazingly well to a token economy system. If she's working for playstation minutes? She'll bust her butt. The 3 or 4 months or so that I actually got her mom to reward her efforts with earned game time? Not a missing assignment one...but its just too much work for mommy dearest, because she has 2 other step kids there 2 days a week that they have to keep of track of, too. Poor mommy. See my tiny violin?

The things she do that most concerns me are the sneaking and the lying. Both are often for no reason, which is concerning to me. And there is next to zero accountability. She'll own up to nothing, even when caught red-handed. If she ever does decide to really go difficult child on us, we are in T.R.O.U.B.L.E.

 

[InsaneCdn]

The things she do that most concerns me are the sneaking and the lying.

Well... that's also dependent on her living with you...
JMHO on this one but... insecure attachment?
You'd be surprised what all that brings out.
Which means - if she comes, the only real hope is to try and build relationships that are stronger than the troubles.
Some of Buddy's posts have some good info on insecure attachment...
Its been the source of some of our troubles, as well.

 

[Shari]

I have no doubt.
I think I have a pretty good relationship with her. I don't ask questions, of course, that might be something she'd lie about, either, but I've caught her in very few lies with me in the recent past. Like I said, I don't ask, but she also isn't volunteering stories as much, either. I didn't realize I hadn't shut the internet down while she was here for a week on Christmas break. It was up the entire time. And so far I have found no evidence that she even attempted to get on it. And she likely knew it was up, as husband was on it several times... but I've also been pretty clear with her that I've taken myself out of the loop as a "parental figure" - I've removed myself from being concerned about her school, etc. But that said, that also means I'm not "required" to bust my butt to treat everyone "fair"; and I won't hang out with liars and thieves. I'm the one who does the bulk of the activities here, and I think she knows I'll let her stay home if she pushes that too far. Could be wrong, but I think she gets that message.

 

[InsaneCdn]

Could be wrong, but I think she gets that message.

"That message" being... that you are someone she can trust. You're a wysiwyg - what you see is what you get. What you say is what you mean. Wrong is wrong - period. Good gets rewarded. You listen.

I'm guessing she gets NONE of that where she is now.

Even if she doesn't come to live with you?
Don't underestimate the long-term impact you're having on her future - including the ability to "relate" to others.

 

[Shari]

husband's sister just found her on FB. lol Apparently cgfg told her she didn't have one when asked about it. So she lied to his sister again just a few days ago...

She's also friends with her mom, now, though, too...so still don't know if she was hiding it from mom, or she and mom are hiding it from us.

 

[JJJ]

That "lack of vision" about their future is one of the key warning flags for dropping out of school among other bad choices. That is one of the reasons that children on IEPs are required to be involved in transition planning from age 14.5, because so many of them have NO IDEA what they want to be when they grow up because they cannot picture it at all or their view is so distorted.

 

[Shari]

Thanks, JJJ. That makes me feel a bit better.

Even as a little girl, she never had a lofty "what I want to be when I grow up", which I've always thought was odd. As she gets older, there's still nothing, and it really concerns me. Most other folks just brush it off, but its really concerning to me that there's no recognition that in just a few short years, she very well could be on her own. And if you press her for an answer, you'll get whatever her sister has done. The last I heard her asked, her reply was. after quite some thought, "I guess I'll be a Walmart worker". And that's how she worded it, too. But she only answers if pressed and she only answers with the jobs her sister has held. (her sister also went to college to be a teacher, but I'm fairly certain isn't doing her student teaching....so not sure where that's going.)

 

[InsaneCdn]

That almost sounds like some layer of depression - not the extreme stuff, but the self-protective me-against-the-world kind of mental box... Given the background, it wouldn't be unusual.

 

[DaisyFace]

My difficult child is pretty much the same way about her future plans...

It's as if she says something just to get people to stop asking her about it - not as if she really intends to pursue it. For the longest time she was talking about the military...but not in the way a person who actually wants to join will talk about it. She would talk about the shopping, and the sun-tanning and the money.... ummm, what???

Now that military is out, she'll tell you "Oh, I'm gonna be a teacher..." but again, no clue as to what it might actually take to get into college. No sense of working hard in school NOW to achieve future goals. No sense of planning. No sense of direction...

but quick to tell you all the stuff she's gonna have at 18. (A fancy car, a big apartment, a room full of books, a laptop, ...)

????

 

[Shari]

IC, I agree.

I am a very mixed bag about what I "hope" happens here...which is sad. I feel bad for feeling so blaise about it, but even if she's here, with the influence of the bulk of the adults in her life? What changes we can really make will be limited.

DF, recognizition of a need for anything she's ever done at school isn't there, either. College? NO WAY! If she wouldn't get in trouble by doing so, I really think the child would never set foot in a school building again...but she wants to stay off the radar enough that she's there...sorta. But its a waste to her. And she's been that way since at least 2nd grade. Long before she struggled in school. She was raised by hermits. Even the social draw isn't there. She can go to a school function where her peers are and not speak to a soul for the entire duration.

As for what she'll have in the future? The only time she's ever even talked about that is when her mom got a van with dvd players in it a few years ago. She wanted that when she grew up. Beyond that, there's never even a reference to growing up. She doesn't want to get married, have children, nothing. She just...is.

 

[InsaneCdn]

If and when she is living with you... only then will you really know. How much is just a reflection of her situation, as opposed to "actual" depression.

You may be surprised... given the trust you are already building... just how much she may blossom on her own.

It would also enable you to catch minor AHA moments - she's good at X, loves to do Y - and you FEED those. ALL of them (to the extent you can... we can't afford to feed K1's car-racing dreams...), and see what "grows".

For cgfg's sake, it could open so many more doors, within herself. But she might be a bit scared of that, too.

As far as FB goes? Given what I've gleaned from the last few months... the highest probability is that its biomom putting her up to it and supporting her in doing it... knowing that others do not agree.

 

[Shari]

I've been on board with her to have the FB for a while. With monitoring. But I suspect that mom knows and has known. The only thing that suggested to me that she didn't was cgfg's lack of being friends with anyone her mom knew...
She hasn't been on it in a few weeks, and she was last night...for only a very few minutes. In that time, she friended her mom, stepdad, aunt, and 2 cousins. Hmmm.... So the other possibility is she got caught and mom brushed it off (in past situations, if this happened, she likely would have "blamed" us for letting her set it up, so who knows.) I told husband and he intends to ask. We don't care that she has it, but we can't have secrets. And we can't build a case on mom not letting her on the internet...cause obviously, she knows and is.